Williams College administrator slams perception that students are coddled

As criticism of student concerns about microaggressions mounts, one college administrator at Williams College has come to their defense.

Ferentz Lafargue, director of the school’s Davis Center — part of the Vice President’s Office for Institutional Diversity and Equity — has written a piece in The Washington Post arguing that college should not insulate students from the bigotry that occurs in the real world, but rather encourage them to stand up against it.

He writes in part, “To be sure, the real world is full of anti-Semitism, homophobia, sexism and racism. The question is: Do we prepare students to accept the world as it is, or do we prepare them to change it?”

Those who say students need to develop thicker skin to survive in the “real world” misses the point he says. “There are broader questions as well, such as: Is college a place for intellectual exploration? Or is it a glorified worker-training program?”

And for students most financially distressed, he notes, the former can make them feel guilty for supposedly wasting time on things not directly tied to their financial security. He writes: “The real culprits — on campuses and in the real world — are the persistent effects of homophobia, income inequality, misogyny, poverty, racism, sexism, white supremacy and xenophobia.

“When students refuse to accept discrimination on college campuses, they’re learning important lessons about how to fight it everywhere.”

At Williams, talk of coddled students and the squashing of unpopular positions started back in October when student groups first demanded the cancellation of a speaker invited by student organization Uncomfortable Learning. The guest, whose event was canceled, was Suzanne Venker, co-author with Phyllis Schlafly of The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know — and Men Can’t Say and The War on Men, among other books. Some students called her anti-feminist, “misogynistic and homophobic,” according to student newspaper The Williams Record.

Last month, a second speaker invited by the same organization was also cancelled — John Derbyshire, who some student groups labeled as racist. The Williams Record reported that Adam Falk, president of Williams, sent out an email that read in part, “The College didn’t invite Derbyshire, but I have made it clear to the students who did that the College will not provide a platform for him.”

Brooke Fox is a University of Colorado-Boulder student and a USA TODAY College digital producer.